PEEPS

European Storm-Petrel - Offshore Cape Hatteras

On 20 May, enough European Storm-Petrels, Hydrobates pelagicus, were seen on a Brian Patteson pelagic off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, to reduce the species' status from ABA Code 5 (accidental, seen five or fewer times in the ABA Area) to a Code 4 (casual, species not recorded annually in the ABA Checklist Area, but with six or more total records—including three or more in the past 30 years—reflecting some pattern of occurrence) or lower.  Those lucky enough to have booked this trip were also treated to a Fea's Petrel, Pterodroma feae, (still considered Fea's/Zeno's Petrel by ABA Checklist Committee).

As Brian Patteson remarked in Winging It, February 2008, European Storm-Petrel was first recorded in the ABA Area as a photographed bird, east of Cape Hatteras on 27 May 2003.  European Storm-Petrel is a common storm-petrel of the temperate North Atlantic, breeding on rat-free islands off many coastal European countries, on Mediterranean Islands, and on the Canary Islands.

It is identified by its small size, white blaze on the underwings, and when in flight, by the the position of its wings, showing a steeper "V" than in Wilson's Storm-Petrel. "Euro's" are square-tailed and short-legged, the feet never projecting behind it's tail.  The species is portrayed in the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America, Fifth Edition, but not in the big Sibley guide.  Late May and offshore Cape Hatteras are the key elements to encountering this species.

Black-tailed Gull - Shemya Island, Alaska

On 22 May, Mike Schwitters found an adult Black-tailed Gull, Larus crassirostris, on Shemya Island, Alaska (see previous post) . 

Black-tailed Gull is a medium-sized, four-cycle gull from coastal northeast Asia.  In western Alaska, it is considered a vagrant.  Remarkably, there is even a Black-tailed Gull record from Belize.  This is a distinctive species with slaty-gray upperparts, pale yellow eye, yellow legs, distinctive long bill with a black-and-red tip.  Its common name describes the broad subterminal black tail band while crassirostris refers to "thick billed".   A photograph of the bird can be seen on www.surfbirds.com and a lengthy description of all four cycles can be found in Gulls of the Americas by Howell and Dunn.

Lesser Sand-Plover - Shemya Island, Alaska

On May 20, about 1200 miles southwest of Anchorage, Alaska, two Lesser Sand-Plover (formerly Mongolian Plover), Charadrius mongolus, were discovered by Bob Trotter.  The birds were discovered on Shemya Island, part of the Near Islands of the Aleutian Island chain.  Shemya Island is a closed military installation with special permission required to visit.  Birding is adjunct to the operations occurring at Shemya and is conducted by either military personnel or contractors while off-duty. Shemya is home to the COBRA DANE radar system that was built in 1976 for the primary mission of intelligence gathering in support of verification of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) II agreement. 

Photographs of both birds, photographed by Bob Trotter, can be seen at www.surfbirds.com. Lesser Sand-Plover is a rare but regular visitor to western Alaska in the spring. It is casual in the interior of Alaska where it has bred. There are currently five recognized subspecies, placed into two groups, which some authors consider to be separate species. To date, all North American records have been identified as being members of the "Mongolian Plover" or northern group in the subspecies stegmanni, which breeds on the Kamchatka and Chukotski Peninsulas and on the Commander Islands. The northern group is characterized by having more brick-colored (not orangish) chest bands and by their extensive white foreheads, absent in the southern group.  The southern group is often called Lesser Sand-Plover, thus confusing the issue.

Wood Sandpiper - Delaware

First discovered in on 5 May, a Wood Sandpiper, Tringa glareola, was found by Sharon Lynn at Braodkill Beach Impoundment, part of Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge, Delaware. The bird is still being seen as of 12 May.  Although accidental in the Lower 48, and much more so on the East Coast, Wood Sandpiper is sometimes uncommon in flocks of other Scolpacidae in northwestern Alaska, especially the Outer Aleutians, where it has bred.

As the shortish bill of this Tringa suggests, members of the tribe, Tringini, forgo the probing style of other sandpipers, but instead use their visual acuity to locate pray, which they chase and snatch in a manner similar to plovers. An abundant species with an estimated European population of about 1.4 million birds, as many as one million individuals of this long-distance migrant winter in Southeast Asia and in east and central Africa. 

In appearance, Wood Sandpiper is most similar to its congener, Green Sandpiper, T. ochropus, although in North America, it most closely resembles a Solitary Sandpiper, but with longer and slightly more yellow legs, shorter bill, slightly larger overall, and with a less attenuated body.  In flight, its call is described as being similar to Greater Yellowlegs, but more shrill.

Bill Maynard
Editor - Winging It   

Piratic Flycatcher - Texas

A Piratic Flycatcher, Legatus leucopalus, was found by Gene Blacklock on 3 May at Pollywog Pond, Corpus Christi, Nueces County, Texas. There are other records from Texas, New Mexico, and Florida, but see below.

On 15 March 1991, a "Variegated Flycatcher" was reported in the Dry Tortugas, Florida.  In a subsequent 2004 review, the Records Committee of the Florida Ornithological Society, voted 7-0 in favor of the Variegated Flycatcher being removed from the state list and correctly replaced by Piratic Flycatcher.  On 12 September 2003 a Piratic Flycatcher was identified from Bosque Redondo, near Fort Sumner, New Mexico.  Another record from Rattlesnake Springs, New Mexico, was originally identified as Variegated Flycatcher, and a 4 April 1998 record of Piratic Flycatcher from Big Bend National Park, Texas, was first identified as a Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher.

Piratic Flycatcher is a resident in Mexico as far north as southern Veracruz state.  It is a widespread species, breeding as far south as northern Argentina.  This species received its name from its habit of aggressively stealing nests of other species, especially those of becards and oropendolas in Mexcio.  It repeatedly drives away original nest owners, and then removes any existing eggs.  Piratic Flycatcher also takes over abandoned nests, but it is not known to build its own nest.

This species is easy to identify by voice, but is reported as being silent from extralimital records.  By plumage, they are separated from Variegated Flycatcher by Variegated's more obvious eyebrow and rufous, not brownish tail, along with Piratic's smaller, wider bill.  The migrant subspecies of Variegated, rufinus, lacks the distinct breast streaking found in Piratic.  For visual comparisons between Variegated, Sulphur-bellied, and Piratic Flycatchers, I recommend the new Birds of Northern South America, Volume 1-2, by Robin Restall, et. al. and Martin Reid's website, www.martinreid.com/Main%20website/piratic.html where excellent comparisons of the two species are presented.

Bill Maynard
Editor - Winging it

Yellow Grosbeak - Southeast Arizona

The husband-and-wife team of Rose Ann Rowlett and Richard Webster, both professional bird guides for Field Guides, Inc., discovered a female Yellow Grosbeak, Pheucticus chrysopeplus, in extreme Southeast Arizona on 5 May.  The bird was discovered at Slaughter (San Bernardino) Ranch on the Geronimo Trail, 15 miles east of Douglas, Arizona.  Slaughter Ranch (fee) is an historical foundation, open from 10 A.M - 3 P.M., Wednesday-Sunday.  The general area where the bird was found is considered a migrant trap and is described in ABA's A Birder's Guide to Southeastern Arizona by Rick Taylor, on pages 220-221.  The ranch was once owned by Texas John Slaughter, a predecessor to Wyatt Earp, and the person responsible for ridding Tombstone of the bad guys. 

Yellow Grosbeak, ABA Code 4, is a Mexican species, and a casual vagrant to Southeast Arizona, primarily in late spring and early summer.  The call and song of this species is similar to the common western species, Black-headed Grosbeak.  Sightings of this species has increased recently, now with winter records accepted by the New Mexico Bird Records Committee (pers. Comm. William Howe).  In Mexico, Yellow Grosbeak is a resident north to central Sonora and southern Chihuahua, where it is found in deciduous and semideciduous forest and edge, thornscrub and clearings.  There are two groups of "Yellow Grosbeaks". Those in the southern part of its range, mainly in South America, are currently considered a separate species and called Golden-bellied Grosbeak by Clements and by the A.O.U., but called Southern Yellow Grosbeak by Hilty in The Birds of Venezuela and by Ridgely and Greenfield in The Birds of Ecuador.

Bill Maynard
Editor - Winging It

Tufted Flycatcher - Southeast Arizona

A Mexican species, Tufted Flycatcher, Mitrephanes phaeocercus, was discovered on 5 May, in Arizona's Chiricahua Mountains by Daniele Mitchell from Canada. Today, 6 May, the Tufted Flycatcher was being seen in Cave Creek Canyon at the Herb Martyr Campground, part of Coronado National Forest. 

Tufted Flycatcher was first found in the U.S. in Rio Grande Village, a part Big Bend National Park, Texas, from 3 November '91 - 17 January '92.  In Texas, this species if found as far north as southern Tamaulipas, Mexico.  South of Arizona, Tufted Flycatcher occurs north to northeast Sonora and northwest Chihuahua, where it is a migrant in the northern part of its range. 

It is pictured nicely in National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America,  Fifth Edition, and in A Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Central America by Steve N.G. Howell and Sophie Webb. 

Tufted Flycatcher is a highland species, found in Mexico in humid and semihumid pine-oak associations, and in evergreen and semideciduous forests and edge  habitats.  In behavior it resembles a pewee, fly-catching from an open perch, often sallying out and returning to the same perch.

Bill Maynard
Editor - Winging It

Ruffs - Massachusetts and Colorado

A number of Ruffs, ABA Code 3, have been reported this spring, the latest from Rowley, Massachusetts, on 4 May. On May 1, the editor of Birding, Ted Floyd, found a Ruff, Philomachus pugnax, at Boulder Reservoir near Boulder, Colorado, a one-day wonder.  Also in Rowley, MA, a second, darker Ruff was reported on 3 May from Stilt Pond.

The most recent Rowley, MA, bird appears to be a white-variant adult, as pictured by David Sibley in The Sibley Guide to Birds, on page 189.  The Colorado bird has sparked some controversy, not as to its straightforward identification, but as to its gender.  Reported as a female or Reeve, experts from the U.K. and Kevin Karlson of shorebird guide fame, think the CO bird is a male. 

Three types of male Ruffs have been described.  Unlike the more common reproductive strategy in most shorebirds, monogamy, Ruffs use one of the more unusual strategies, polygamy.  In their special type of polygamy, Ruff males defend a small territory on a lek.  Lekking males are larger than female Reeves, and while displaying on their arena, they await females for the sole purpose of reproduction.  In addition to the wildly plumed males, there is a second group of smaller satellite males, less elaborately decorated, who do not defend a territory. While territorial males are strut-walking, wing-fluttering, wing-lifting, and tail-shaking, it is often the satellite males who breed with the females.

Recently, biometrics has revealed a third type of Ruff male, called faeders.  In a study in southern Belarus in 2004, 242 birds were sexed by DNA analysis.  Three birds, identified as males, had female plumage, but their wing lengths were intermediate between females and males with breeding plumage.  Less than one percent of male Ruffs are considered faeders.

The name Ruff is a contraction of the word ruffle, the spectacular feathers on male's necks and heads.  Perhaps because of the large size differences between males and females, the smaller females were given the distinct name Reeve, similar to the different names for male and female game birds.

Regardless, Ruffs have the most elaborate breeding system of all the Scolopacidae, and they are the most-studied.

Bill Maynard
Editor - Winging It